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At the end of June 2019 the Information Regulator announced that the process of putting the Protection of Personal Information Act into effect is “going very slowly” and that:
A CEO started on 1 June 2019;
A CFO started on 1 July 2019;
Other executives are being appointed;
They are now at a point where they are finalising the “second tier of the organisational structure and will be taking it to the Minister of Finance”. No date…

A government administrator’s decision may be irrational because it does not take into account a vital material fact for making a rational decision in the light of the empowering legislation and its purpose. The relevant question for rationality is whether the means, including the process of making a decision, are linked to the purpose or the required ends.
The decision must be rationally related to the achievement of the purpose for which the power is…

Lloyd’s of London requires its insurers to exclude or provide affirmative cover for cyber risks.
Insurers connected to Lloyd’s must make sure they do not have unintended exposure to cyber risk.
From the beginning of 2020 underwriters are required to ensure that their property damage policies specifically affirm or exclude cyber cover. This applies to new policies, renewed policies, coverholder arrangements, lineslips and consortia.
In the case of liability and treaty reinsurance, the requirements will…

Section 13(1)(d) of the Prescription Act 1969 delays prescription where there is a debt between partners arising out of the partnership relationship. The legal relationship of partnership arises from a contract between two or more persons who each agree to make a contribution (whether in money, property or service) to a venture to be carried on jointly by them with a view to making a profit and on the basis of sharing profits and losses. Where…

A New York Appeals Court unsurprisingly found that a recycling bin with wheels, which ruptured a gas line used by residents of an apartment building, is not a ‘vehicle’.
An all risks policy exclusion did not apply if there was ‘direct loss causing physical damage to covered property from vehicles’. The court said that not everything with wheels is a ‘vehicle’, as that word is commonly understood. A vehicle focuses on transportation or conveyance. Even…

The Western Cape High Court held that the principal debtor (in this case the contractor under a building contract) can apply to court to rectify a guarantee between the guarantor (an insurer) and the beneficiary under the guarantee (the employer) where the contractor had given a counter indemnity to the insurer.
A guarantee contract is an autonomous, independent contract. The contract, although autonomous, is founded on the common intention of the insurer, the beneficiary and…

Cyber insurers should note the debate going on in London regarding reform of the war exclusion clause in cyber insurance. The perpetrators of cyber incidents are often untraceable and it is difficult to ascertain whether they constitute state-sponsored acts of war subject to the war exclusion clause.
There is at least one pending action where the insurer has relied on the policy exclusion of ‘hostile or warlike action’ as a reason to reject the claim.…

Where an insurer provided a performance bond/guarantee in which it undertook to pay ‘on receipt of a written notice from the seller’ saying that the purchaser had defaulted, it was held that extinctive prescription only started to run when demand for payment was made even though three years had passed since the default event.
The purpose of a performance/payment guarantee is to assure a contracting party that it will be paid, unaffected by any controversies…

A New Jersey appeals court refused to grant cover for a loss of $4 million worth of opals ruined inside a safe that had to be opened with a blowtorch.
The claim was made against the company that sold the safe and were involved in the day long effort to get the safe opened when it was returned to them.
Coverage was excluded for ‘personal property in the care, custody or control of the insured’. The…

A building contractor sought to argue that the word ‘acquire’ in the Housing Consumers Protection Measures Act 1998 meant ‘buying or obtaining ownership’. The court held that the primary meaning of ‘acquire’ is ‘come to possess something’. The suggestion that persons who have rented their places of permanent residence have not ‘acquired a home’ as that phrase is understood in common parlance, was said to be untenable in the context of the Act.
The construction…